When TV takes over parenting

Over the weekend, while having coffee with my girl pal, Cynthia, we delved into a discussion about how TV sets have taken over parental responsibility.Cynthia, who also happens to be a mother, told me how her three-year-old daughter, Aviela’s accent and vocabulary have changed all because of the Disney channels on TV. Being a career woman, she has no choice but to leave her daughter with the housemaid who she suspects lets Aviela watch TV all day long. “Everyone thinks my daughter goes to an international school or was born abroad which isn’t the case. My daughter is addicted to kid programmes like Boomerang and Nickelodeon. What bothers me most is that she knows the characters in most of these soap operas that I don’t even watch. I am certain it is the housemaid’s doing,” she said.Cynthia confesses that she doesn’t like some of the things her daughter has learnt through watching TV; however she can’t easily tame her.Aviela uses American slang which she thinks is correct English and when her mother tries to correct her, she defends herself with arguments like, “But Hannah Montana said so!” So in this case, Aviela thinks that whatever she learns from TV is gospel truth unlike what her mom tells her.Whereas there is something good that can come from TV such as, widening vocabulary and knowledge, TV mainly has adverse effects on children.When a child watches too much television, they are hindered from being physically active, interacting with friends, reading and doing homework among other activities.Some of these shows include violent scenes, scenes with smoking and consuming of alcohol which are not appropriate for children.Additionally, children who watch TV for hours on end are more likely to gain a lot of weight since their bodies are inactive.It’s not easy or even fair, to completely stop children from watching TV; however, we shouldn’t let it take over parenting roles.Parents should be responsible enough to monitor the content on TV programmes that their children watch and ensure that children don’t watch too much of it but rather engage in other activities like playing and reading.